


bluebell

by moonlitknight



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, IT(2017) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Anxiety, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, anyway., honestly the flower shop isnt an actual au im just lame, its coming, more tags tba, oh my god it is 4:30 am please, this is riddled with several different aus and i think im being smart with foreshadowing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23732635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitknight/pseuds/moonlitknight
Summary: Moving from one town to another was one thing, but moving from one side of the country was another.  When your entire life is torn from you for something new, one thing is on your mind; why didn't your parents wait until after senior year?
Relationships: Patrick Hockstetter/Reader, patrick hockstetter/you
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	1. prelude.

To move from one town to another was scary, a stressful feat and tension-filled car ride away from everything you’d ever known. The fact that your family, officially your father’s, owned a small but wildly successful flower shop aided in the previous relief that you’d never have to worry about the stress of staying in contact with those you loved, bonded with from childhood. Indeed, the worries were all but torn from you when your father decided to uproot the life he’d grown in favor of riding the wind across the country from sunny California to dreary Maine. Or, that’s what you’d heard about the state from your distraught friends.

“B-but you can’t leave! Who else is gonna be my good-luck Uno charm?” Your friend, Dominic, who claimed to have an unnamed aunt living in Portland, whined in hysteria.

“Relax, man, we can still like, call ‘n stuff,” you say, hoping they couldn’t see your tense shoulders or the hollowness in your smile.

Around the lunch table, your friend group - composed of many you’d manage to make and had the privilege of a continued education with - looked significantly downcast despite the otherwise sunny weather outside.

“Will there be any chance of you coming back after high school?” Valentina, who sat across the table from you, asked. Her lack of an emotional response could’ve been taken negatively by anyone else, yet it did nothing but soothe your currently flaring nerves.

“W-well,” yet, the question had you shifting uncomfortably in your seat under their gazes. Nothing malicious was found in them, in fact they were tender and sympathetic, but the future felt dim in terms of the reliability of your return. You take to staring at the table itself, whether it be in shame or escapism, you aren’t sure. “I don’t know ... we can send letters to one another?”

Around you, the table released a collective sigh.

That afternoon, another friend John walked home with you. In an unusually slow pace, his shoe collided with a pebble in frustration, in unison to an agitated timbre. “I just don’t understand why you have to up and go so quickly. Was the shop doing badly?”

“I’m not very sure,” though the question would’ve appeared invasive to any eavesdropper, if felt nice to unload your thoughts with no repercussions. You take to adjusting your backpack on your shoulder and begin again. “Marginally I think sales have been falling a bit, but I don’t think it was anything drastic. There’s also been some competition popping up recently.”

“No shit? Maybe your old man wants to be king of the flowers or somethin’. I feel like there’s cooler titles, but that’d make you princess, bluebell,” A grin manifested on his tan features, a hearty snicker as the two of your rounded onto the shared street. “And I can’t think of anything more fitting for you.”

“Whatever. Mom said I’ll be getting a car when we get there, all to myself, too,” a small smile of amusement managed to grace your features when he used the nickname. The origin traced back to middle school, when you declared bluebells to be your favorite flower. John all but howled with laughter, in a friendly way, when he pointed out how well the meaning fit you as a person. Among the mythology’s meaning, their associations take back to Scotland, and often would be thought to house witches on the run hidden as rabbits. Their literal meaning, humility.

“Damn, dude, get a hemi. Do you know how cool you’d be?”

“Aren’t I already cool enough?” You all but grinned at him.

“Nah, and this’ll be my stop. Toodles, bluebell,” he waved, starting the walk through the green grass of his property. Before turning, he hollered one last thing to you. “Send me a postcard from Scary Derry!”

“Okay, bye, Buck!” you call to him, starting up the pathway to your own home. The nickname, akin to yours, had spawned in middle-school. Through some project in seventh grade, the two of you had found out that his name - John Doe - was also the name of the hypothetical, typical man in the United States. Trading out the typicality of calling him by his last name, you instead began referring to him by ‘Buck,’ which stuck until the departure.

Stepping through the doorway felt nearly surreal. The image of everything so delicately packed away into cardboard boxes, a majority of which having found themselves in a moving van these past few days, made for a cocktail of anxiety and nostalgia; resulting in the heavy scent of dejection. While the effect seemed to be a downcast feeling over your heat, your parents were anything but. Two joyous bees in a garden, their hard work over the day not going unnoticed. Though, what had gone unnoticed was the moving truck outside, the driver and your father currently thought-deep in some discussion about lawnmowers or something.

As you move your way through the living room into the kitchen, empty save for the to-be-donated dingy dining room set of a table and three chairs, you reminisced about what it was like only a week or two prior. Most of the kitchen had been intact, save for the nice china and silverware, packed and stored with love. Where there was once a dirty-dish filled sink sat pristine and polished, empty porcelain. The pantry, currently running on low, had been locked in that state for the past few days; the image of it alone reminded you of the early-evening discussions of where to get something to eat came up once again. There would undoubtedly be plastic dinnerware in play tonight. The tenderness in a home-cooked meal had you yearning, even though you knew emptying everything would make the most logical sense. Still, the softer side of you, a rattling in your bones getting harder to ignore, wanted to wild and wither away from the existence and reality you were being forced to step into.

The incoming steps of your mother pulled you from thought. Her hum carried into the kitchen with her. As if in unison, the presence of each other all but startled you both back into the present.

“Has time passed that quickly, or are you just home early?” Her voice, bubbly and light, wasn’t enough to pull you from the sunken wreckage of your current numbness.

“I think I’m actually later than usual, while the time-change hadn’t been a particularly recent even, having a reliable internal clock was never something you had the pleasure of having. The sun all but hovered above the horizons, the bright blue of earlier day beginning to shift to a gradient of pinks and oranges; an extravagant, every day good bye. Maybe if you stared into it long enough, you could learn the ways of the sun’s blistering confidence.

“Ah well, time isn’t exactly your strong suit. I’d say you got it from your father,” For the last part, her voice dropped to a whisper.

Unfortunately, the joke was lost on you, instead taking to a quiet ‘hm’ and absent-minded rifling through the produce - left in a bowl on the counter, between the sink and stove - which had the title of edible. Settling on an apple, you turned your attention back to her. “Is there anything I have to do tonight?”

“You have your room all packed up, right?” She watches as you nod and take a bite from the apple. “Then I say tonight is the calm of the storm!”

She begins a walk into another, likely empty or mostly-packed room, giving you exactly one moment to cringe at the one-liner before turning back around. “Oh! I meant to tell you, someone already bought this house!”

Expectant of a more emotionally charged response, she momentarily deflates at the rigid shrug you offer her before giving a bubbly roll of her eyes and a low sigh of “oh, teenage angst,” as she steps back out of the doorway and line of sight. Despite the almost frustrated furrow in your brow, you dive back into thought, if only to cool your internal hearth of anger threatening to heat up. Honestly, the shock of a seller scooping what your family had to offer was lost on you, and had been since someone bought the shop - in a lovely location of Beverly Hills, adoringly picked out by your father’s lucky hand before you were even a thought. It was a sweet story, the love of your mother and father and how it came to be, yet it wasn’t something you could quite find appreciation in at the moment. Love, schmove, people were scary and you’d rather be playing your bass.

Back to your reverie. Although the announcement of your departure seemed abrupt to your friends, the thought of moving had been bouncing around your family ( read: parents ) since your freshman year. Likely, behind closed doors for even longer. Now on the cusp of junior years end and middle of spring, the week had been spent packing, studying, and taking finals with the seniors. The thing is, the announcement itself wasn’t meant to be pushed off for so long, practically the entire semester, but every time you wanted to bring it up, you physically broke down. The thoughts of leaving everything you knew, had grown up with-managed to deplete you completely of logical reason.

Two times you’d spent the entire latter half of the day in either the nurse’s office or being comforted by the guidance counselor. Two days you’d felt so hopeless you wanted to do nothing more than disappear from reality in complete.

Physically, you manage a shaky exhale. Turning and leaving the kitchen, you scold yourself for dragging the memory from where it was so carefully tucked away in the deepest part of your mind. How was it, that when left to its own devices, your mind managed to grab a hold of exactly what you didn’t want it to?

A puff of annoyance leaves you, feet stepping through the threshold of you room to be greeted with its self-imposed emptiness. The whirlpool of your mind’s plotting seemed to pause at looking around the space. Gone were the messy days of hardly a hardly organized desk, or of ridding the wooden floors of dirty laundry. The rock of melancholy managed to lodge itself in your gut once again. Your mattress, stripped of sheets and a frame, sat semi-inviting on the floor. Perhaps a nap would soothe the chaos of your mind in its mission to ruin your evening. Forgoing pajamas, you decided to head en route to dreamland in the shortest time possible in your day clothes - barring shoes. Thankfully, the exhaustion in your bones reassured a quick dozing-off time.

❪ ▵ * 💐 * ▵ ❫

Somehow, slumber managed to carry you through the night and into the early morning, granting you a miraculous rise before the sun. Careful, light steps take your sock-clad feet and rousing mind to the shell of your childhood home. Quietly, you stared at the door frame into the bathroom, marked in different writing utensils and two obviously different handwritings; a height marker from early childhood, beginning at the wrist and ending at your shoulder.

Your eyes began to sting the longer you stared, soaked it in, sniffling away the oncoming snot. The unfortunate truth of aging and the situations it brings manages to strike a chord deep within, and you were left absentmindedly running your hand up the vertical memories and pawing at the aftermath of tears. Later in the day, you’d have to face the scrutiny of puffy eyes.

With everything academically out of the way for you, the next three months felt like a terrifying shot in the dark. Not too long after you awoke, you made eye contact with a digital clock, telling you the approaching departure happened to be nearer than you hoped. Outside, the family car sat parked to a comfortable maximum with the remnants of items deemed fit to ride with your family personally.

You hurried through a shower, careful as to not take a significant portion of the hot water needed for your parents personal hygiene.

The literal and figurative road ahead was one laced with dread. Days stuck in the car, holed up in motel and hotel rooms. How much could your family take before they were at one another’s throats?


	2. one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> your introduction to Derry left something to be desired, unfortunately.

Through either the sheer will of a family trying to save face, or your parents truly not having a negative bone in their body, the entire trip managed to go by with little to no arguments or turbulence overall. There were sometimes the off-handed spats surrounding actual wrong routes being taken, though hardly went further than that.

Sight-seeing was also kept to a minimum, sometimes reserved for the odd attraction that was sure to be a topic of conversation down the road. Had it been a vacation, you’re sure your friends in California would’ve gotten a kick out of it. Perhaps an inside joke would spring from your retelling, like the time at one of the state zoos you’d visited throughout childhood with Buck.

Small trinkets had been gathered while your family went from state to state. You’d mostly found an interest in post cards, bought in odd convenience stores during fuel or bathroom stops. Though some were stained with whatever food was on your fingertips at the time or bent on the edges, most remained in pristine condition. There were intentions of sending them back to your friends, possibly with a fond letter and maybe a present attached. It warmed you, cured you only of the slight loneliness felt deep in the depths of night, typically sleepless ones on uncomfortable beds that were yours for the night.

Driving into town left a curious impression on you. Decrepit, outdated, or simply poorly-fitting buildings were dotted all around the town, yet managed to go by in a blur. The street which your house is on appears more upscale in comparison, the traditional image of white-picket fences in their higher-level vainglory. A step up from California, though only in this one area. It was odd, to go from what was considered the ‘rougher’ side of town and treated like it in school; it brought a faint bount of worry for what senior year would entail.

Now, you stand before the new place you’d be calling ‘home.’ Pristine and white, its large yard enough to quite possibly contain the green thumb of your parents, who all but dragged you through the door frame.

Inside, aside from the boxes containing your new and old live’s material possessions, it proved as high-end as the outside perceived it to be. The furnishings include an up-to-date kitchen and appliances, several nice couches throughout the first floor, and luxurious wooden floors. In what you can only assume to be the foyer, or whatever the correct phrasing for the stupid layout is, sits a piano. The entire aesthetic of the home, at first glance, isn’t something you feel is entirely coherent to the types of individuals your family is, and it briefly left your head spinning until your father sets a warm hand on your shoulder.

“There’s a large difference in the standards of living,” he starts, as if to bring a level of reassurance to your thoughts, and smiling at the vague but apparent confusion on your face. “And there’s a piano for you to practice on. The basement is all yours, and there’s soundproof walls.”

Though his tone holds a light-hearted and joking lilt so familiar to him, the information felt to nearly be an overload. The unmoved smile manages to calm your nerves if only a fraction while your feet carry you down the carpeted steps of the stairs, where the hardwood noticeably cuts off. Light, true sunlight pours into the first room with a grace and carelessness only possessed by Apollo himself. The windows come into view next, and though your eyes adjust quickly, the backyard took a moment to take in. Vast, green, and private. A fresh, orange-wooded, unpainted fence lined it, taller than you by a head easily. A doorway to the outside sits locked, and you quickly vote for it to stay that way.

The remainder of the room, and likely the rest of the bastement’s floor, holds shaggy carpeting. Reminiscent of your old room, you smile down at the soon-to-be dingy white. The room is occupied by a brown leather couch and loveseat, likely to stay avoidant of people if the upcoming year is to go as you fear it to.

Through the doorway, your assembled bed frame sits with a new, bare mattress. Then, as an offshoot, a bathroom -- complete and yours.

Leaning on the bed, you scowl. This is such an upgrade to your previous single-story home, which remains humble in appearance in your mind’s eye and rosey memory. Sure, there had been some issues, but how had your parents managed to save enough for a house that feels perfect enough to be plucked straight out of the movies?

“Honey!” Your mother’s voice carries down the stairwell, setting you in immediate motion to meet her eyes from down the stairs. “We’re going to take a look at the shop, would you come along?”

Recognizing the tone you take it more as a command rather than request and nod at her retreating form to jog back up the stairs. To the side of the doorway, deliberately set there, several boxes sit stacked. To your split second understanding, they would either need to be stored, or are your own possessions. The sound of an engine pulls you further from the confinements of the new house, alongside the missing countenance of your parents.

The outside world gives no ease to the growing concern of the town’s loneliness and possible deceit, the overwhelming desolation only highlighted by seemingly empty sidewalks on your first scan of the area. Yet, as though some divine force decides to toy with the image of the town, the new impressions it had on you, a person made their way down the street - to who you quickly align to being a boy around your age. When he manages to grab your attention, he seems to be outright gawking at the new addition and face.

A confused expression contorts his otherwise charismatic features. He appears the same, or at least around, age as you with bleach blond hair, such a questionable shade it leaves you wondering if it’s a natural shade or one he forged himself. Clothes that could look to be something from your own closet, had you the freedom of exploration without the passive scrutiny of your parent’s side-eye or comments. Under the gray, rain-soaked clouds and sunless sky, the olive greens and browns of his camouflage pants appear even more desaturated. He walks with booted feet, which sends a tremor of intimidation through you.

The eye-contact you both make is brief, but enough to be considered awkward by the nagging and overactive side of your brain; likely a moment to be played from the deep recesses of your mind when you couldn’t sleep in the nights to come. To make matters worse, you walk into the closed back door of the awaiting family car. His confusion quickly melts to humor in front of your suddenly bashful eyes, and he’s the one to break the spell of your gazes with a turned head and hands shoved into his pockets. Embarrassment burns red and bright on your face while you make quick work of looking down at the door handle and getting in.

“Hi, honey!” does the near-comical drawl of your father in the front seat. A smile appears nearly plastered on his face, straining in its nature. In the passenger seat your mother feels radiant in the aftermath of whatever you’d just missed, leaving you in a faint whirlwind and unadjusted to the air. The quick accustom to it leaves you thinking it’s angry, maybe frustrated. It feels odd, to be on the other side of inherited habits and rituals, and even more odd that the first greeting you’d managed to have overshadowed the missed altercation between the two.

“Uh, hey,” you start, moving to buckle your seatbelt in tandem with the vehicle moving in reverse. The newfound tension in the air feels thicker than the growing humidity in mid-day Maine. “So, we’re going to check out the store?”

“Yep. Do you like your rooms?” Your mother answers and asks, a thin veil for the ire which lurks beneath. A beast which you wouldn’t be prodding any further, warnings which your father never paid any mind to.

“Yeah, there’s a lot more room then the old house. I think I know the general idea of how I want to set things up, too.”

Despite the forced lightness in your tone, and the actual welcome of conversation to alleviate the tension in the air, silence follows your voice. The radio plays a cassette of yours, but is drowned out by the engine and your conscience. The current menu for your mind was playing off marinating in the familial awkwardness without clammy hands and the post-meeting-anxiety of the guy who -- potentially -- could be a new neighbor. Somehow, it already feels like you’ve fucked up.

The second drive through town manages to drag out more than the first. This time, the dull and drab scenery’s cracks manage to take shape. Relentless potholes. Sun-dried and broken fences. Side-glances or outright malicious stares from random townspeople. Somehow, Derry manages to check all the boxes of shit straight out of a horror novel. Oh, did you mention the absolutely gargantuan lumberjack statue that has no other discernible reason to be there than  _ just because _ ?

Had you been granted the wanderlust of your father, this town would feel absolutely filled with interesting things that would be perfect for someone with an interest in finding out the secrets. As a natural homebody, there was nothing appealing to finding out the origins of the statue, nothing rewarding to be found in the basking of stranger’s gazes. By God, you hoped that the mark you would leave on this town would be but a washable stain for next year to forget about.

The car comes to a stop at the back of a building, seemingly the same level of structural soundness as the rest of the buildings on Center Street; thankfully facing your absolute favorite piece of the town. On the first overview, to say the shop is in a state of disarray would be a disservice to the word itself, an understatement to the nth degree. The upcoming work to be put into it felt to be a precursor for something strenuous, but enough to get your mind off of the current state of your own life and thoughts surrounding it.

A comforting hand finds itself on your shoulder again, and you look up to meet the kind eyes of your father. He smiles, at the image of the store, then down at you; lopsided and genuine. “We’ll be starting back at square one, but this time you’ll be building it with us.”

The value of the sentiments weighs heavy in his voice, and all at once you understand why you should be bearing through this. For your parents, for your father. Even if you didn’t know very much about Derry, Maine, or the east coast in general, the spark of life that felt absent from his eyes all at once came back into existence.

Your mother rounds around you both, encasing your father with an arm around the shoulder. A smile manages to form onto her face, too, genuine and toothy. “Psh, you say that like she wasn’t much help at the original store,  _ dear _ .”

You smile, genuine, too. “I’m still happy to be a part of it, though.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kinda fell under the word count i was shooting for BUT i!! think i left it in a nice place. i'll be trying to update this once every week, i hope you're enjoying it! the next chapter i swear it'll be picking up a bit more character wise, i just think family moments are very important, especially in a fanfic for this story lol. sidenote im trying so hard with staying accurate with all the locations,,,if i'm making any mistakes feel free to correct/roast me  
> have a lovely day, thank you for reading! ♡

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this was an enjoyable read! i'll have chapter two up soon, this was just more of a prelude / exposition. i'm trying my best to convey emotion through the reader in a relatable way, i hope it was okay? thank you for reading, have a lovely day!  
> also, hmu on my tumblr @[m00nlitknight](https://m00nlitknight.tumblr.com/)!


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